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Sweet-breads with Mushroom Sauce

A dish of fried sweetbreads topped with a creamy mushroom sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Sweet-breads with Mushroom Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Soak the sweetbreads in cold salted water for 1 hour.

  2. Remove all stringy parts and soak in clear cold water briefly.

  3. Dry the sweetbreads with a towel.

  4. Dip them in beaten egg and then in fine bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in equal parts lard and butter until brown.

  2. Place the fried sweetbreads in a hot dish.

  3. In a saucepan, combine cream or milk, butter, parsley, salt, and pepper.

  4. Add a little thickening and the can of mushrooms.

  5. Bring to a boil and pour the sauce over the sweetbreads.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Bread + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Provide the tender main protein that the dish is built around.
Beaten egg
Binds the fine bread crumbs to the sweetbreads so the coating adheres while frying.
Fine bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden-brown coating when fried in fat.
Lard and butter
Fry the coating, promoting browning and adding rich flavor.
Cream or milk
Forms the body of the sauce, adding richness and a smooth texture.
Thickening
Thickens the sauce so it coats the sweetbreads rather than running off.

The step that matters

Drying the sweetbreads before coating. Surface moisture keeps the egg and crumbs from sticking evenly and steams the coating, so it fries unevenly instead of browning crisply.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, bread, butter, cream, pepper, mushroom):

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, bread, butter, cream, pepper, mushroom. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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